• @jjjalljs
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      126 months ago

      I have long thought that the police as an institution in the US is, shall we say, not good.

      One time I was walking home from the grocery and I saw a couple having a screaming fight on the street. The guy had taken the woman’s phone from her and was holding it up out of her reach. I thought to myself, “Someone should probably do something… but who? And what?”

      If I had called the police, it’s incredibly unlikely it would have gone well. The people fighting weren’t white, for one thing. The cops would probably roll up, throw their authority around, and get violent. Possibly murder the guy. Not what you want. Even if they didn’t do violence immediately, subjecting that guy to the criminal justice system is not what you want, either.

      In my imagination there should be a department of deescalation specialists. No guns. No arrest powers. Maybe some snacks.

      But yeah, policing in the US is a tragedy at pretty much every level.

      Back on topic, responsibility could maybe fall onto the platform. There are suicide prevention services. Maybe there could be mass shooting prevention services.

      • @SCB@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        In my imagination there should be a department of deescalation specialists. No guns. No arrest powers. Maybe some snacks.

        As a teacher, I had to do home visits for every student in my homeroom. Two families threatened to kill me. One by siccing their dogs on me, the other by just shooting me. The entire purpose of my visit was just to meet them and let them know I care about their kids

        What do you do when these de-escalation specialists go to talk to a person who is crazy-posting, and have their lives threatened?

        I don’t ask this facetiously. I think this is a good idea. But these workers will run into situations like this, and more to the point, opponents of these programs will definitely bring this sort of thing up when trying to sway public opinion.

        I legit don’t have an answer.

    • @frezik@midwest.social
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      36 months ago

      Some of the earliest modern police forces in the US were slave patrols in the south. In the north, Boston was the first city to have a modern professional force. It grew out of a system where private companies were hiring their own security to protect their cargo in the Boston port, and offloaded that cost onto the public.

      Professional, publicly funded policing in the US has long been there to protect the interests of the powerful.